Five years ago, I bought a series of corrective exercise sessions with Anthony Carey, MA, who is CEO and founder of Function First in San Diego. I was in a tremendous amount of pain, but there was an athlete inside me begging to get out. During one of our assessments, Carey asked me if I had been placed in one of those walkers when I was a toddler. Indeed, I had. My mom was overwhelmed by having two children under the age of 2 and just placed my little diapered butt into a walker with wheels. In fact, there are numerous photos of me beaming and crying from the confines of my assisted walking device.

Many of you have probably already guessed where the assessment led. But I had no clue where Carey was going with this. He told me that I had skipped an important stage of development by not being given the chance to flow from crawling to pulling myself up to walking. Consequently, my body never really could figure out how to move correctly and I actually still walked as if half my body was caged in a walking device. My upper body did not move in synch with my lower body. Eureka. Danger, Willomena Robinson, danger!

Gratefully, Carey’s program helped me learn new patterns of movement and alleviated my pain, although it is still a journey. Matthew Cromer, MS, who presented several brilliant STOTT PILATES® sessions this weekend, would say that I was “learning how to manage my gravity.”

There is something to be said about learning to crawl before you walk. I am not just referring to the obvious stages of development alluded to above, but also your career. You have to get certified and educated before you train clients. You need to do an assessment before you design a program. You must have a marketing plan if you want to get the word out about your services. It’s so simple, and yet many personal trainers get caught up in the fifth and sixth stages of development when they really should go back to the first: know thyself. Who are you, what is your business persona, who are you going to focus on?

Jonathan Ross, owner of Aion Fitness in Bowie, Maryland, gets super charged up by conferences like IDEA Personal Trainer Institute. His brain is constantly working to come up with solutions to problems. To hear him talk, it’s as if there is a symphony of exercises battling for recognition. He thinks the industry needs to take a step back from arguing about what the muscles of the core are in order to take two steps forward to make change happen.

He’s not saying there is no value in debating the finer points of anatomy. On the contrary, there is value in the debate and discussion. “However,” he says, “it too often winds up being done from the perspective of playing ‘gotcha’ with a lot of current industry practices, and the result is that many [personal trainers] wind up a bit shell-shocked, feeling like they need a master’s degree in functional anatomy before doing anything with a client. What I see missing is a blending of respect for how the body works and a focus on getting people more active.”

It’s so simple it hurts. Get people moving, that’s it. Don’t wait until they're at a point where they can do single leg balances on a BOSU Balance Trainer. Just get them invested in the idea of movement itself.

Be looking for a more thorough wrap-up article on this amazing conference and also stay tuned for video footage and photos. Thank you for making IDEA Personal Trainer Institute™ such a huge success. I look forward to watching you Inspire the World to Fitness® with your drive, passion and knowledge.

Joy joined IDEA Health & Fitness Association in 2002, and brought with her a wealth of information about how to fine-tune communication channels, after having spent her formative career years specializing in business-to-business journalism. Before she even graduated with honors from the respected University of Georgia journalism school, Joy was offered a job at one of the most successful trade publishing companies in the southeast, Shore Varrone, Inc. She made her mark in the automotive aftermarket industry as a creative thinker and journalist with an intuitive knack for researching and understanding niche audiences.

Joy has worked on several titles, including Auto Trim & Restyling News,Truck Accessory News,Digital Output Magazine,Retail & Construction News,Miata magazine, Ford Racing, and many more. Her passion, however, lies with health and fitness. She was the associate editor of ACE Certified News while working at the American Council on Exercise, and transitioned that publication from a newsletter to a magazine. She has enjoyed 16 years at IDEA, where she has launched several publications, including the award-winning Inner IDEA Body-Mind Spirit Review,IDEA Pilates Today and IDEA Fit Business Success.

Joy is a content creator and media 2.0 advocate who takes pride in discovering the unique information needs of qualified audiences, and she is dedicated to serving those needs while following the highest available standards.